CHAPTER 5: Fuck Me

I pulled my knees back to my chest and pressed my forehead against them, trying to breathe around the lump in my throat.

Tomorrow Noah would act like everything was fine. He’d kiss my cheek at breakfast, call me babe in front of his friends, and I’d smile because I had nowhere else to go. I was the broke girlfriend living in his father’s house, the one whose own mother had stopped taking her calls. To put it plainly, I couldn’t afford pride.

But tonight, in the dark where I know nobody could see me, I let myself admit the truth I’d been choking on for weeks:

I wasn’t angry at Noah for flirting with other girls by the pool.

I was angry because he’d stopped flirting with me.

Wasn’t that just outright pathetic.

I covered my face with my hands and exhaled shakily.

Sleep, I told myself. Just sleep before you start crying again like an idiot.

But a Ding broke the silence.

At first I ignored it, assuming it was my phone, but when I glanced across the room and saw my own device lying on the dresser, I knew it definitely wasn’t.

The sound had come from somewhere closer like right beside me.

I pushed the blanket aside and found Noah’s phone half tucked between the pillows. He must have forgotten it.

Jeez, he can be such an airhead sometimes.

I picked it up gingerly when another notification lit up the screen.

A little red (1) on the Messages icon showing on the screen.

Curiosity is a bastard. I’ve always known that, but knowing and stopping are two different beasts.

‘Stop, Thea,’ my own voice scolded inside my skull. I actually slapped both my cheeks with my palms. ‘Don’t do it’.

But my legs were already swinging off the bed.

I typed his password before I could talk myself out of it and the messages app opened immediately.

There wasn’t any need to scroll.

It was right there.

At the very top… staring at me, was a nude picture that came with the text: I’m waiting for you, baby. Door’s unlocked. Bring that mouth I miss so much.

My breath slipped out of me in a soft, pathetic sound and I dropped the phone onto the blanket as if it burned me.

My heart cracked so loudly I could almost hear it. And then… something strange happened.

I started laughing.

Who in their right mind would laugh right now?

Oh, right. Me, apparently.

“Oh my God,” I choked out, laughing harder.

But tears started spilling down my face at the same time.

I probably sat like that for minutes — laughing and crying, crying and laughing — until the laughter faded and only the tears remained. Silent tears that rolled down my cheeks and dropped onto my knees.

I wiped them with the back of my hand and inhaled.

After a long moment, I stood up.

My body moved before my thoughts did, leaving the phone behind as I walked to the door, stepped into the hallway, and closed it gently behind me.

I walked past the stairs and down to the corridor that led to the west wing — to where his father’s room was.

And as I took every step, my mind repeated the same horrible thought over and over again:

Would I be a terrible person if I said that what I saw hurt me… but also relieved me?

Because now I wouldn’t have to feel guilty about what I was walking toward.

What I was about to do.

What I had been wanting since the moment his father’s fingers touched my chin.

The phone. The nude. The message.

They felt like permission.

Like the universe whispering, If He Cheats, You Can Cheat Too.

And that whisper… God, it was loud.

Before I knew it, my knuckles were tapping gently against Mr. Gage’s door.

The door opened almost immediately.

He was barefoot, wearing only low-slung navy sweatpants, hair damp from a shower. The hallway light sent shadows across the broad line of his shoulders. He looked like every forbidden fantasy I’d ever had, all wrapped in one unfairly beautiful, exhausted man.

His brows drew together when he saw my face. “Thea?”

I stepped into his space until I had to tip my head back to hold his gaze.

“Fuck me, Mr. Gage,” I said. “Please.”